Annabel Rodriguez-Santos, 8, lies in bed after a long night of getting little sleep. Annabel had an asthma attack during the night.

Two eyes, darkened from little sleep, poked out from underneath a blanket. Annabel Rodriguez-Santos, 8, lay in her mother’s bed in a room she shares with her mother and older sister at her grandmother’s house in north Denver’s Elyria-Swansea neighborhood.

“There are some nights you don’t even sleep because you are just watching over them,” said Nancy Santos, Annabel’s mother. Both of her daughters suffer from asthma.

After her husband was killed in an automobile accident, Santos and her daughters moved from Summit County to Denver to be with family. That’s when the girls started having breathing problems, she said.

LEFT: A view looking south towards downtown in an industrial section of North Denver. RIGHT: A young student walks through construction under an elevated section of Interstate 70 on her way to Swansea Elementary.

Reporting air-quality concerns

CDOT’s Central 70 Project team invites residents with air-quality concerns to call a 24-hour hotline — 833-C70-INFO or 833-270-4636 — if they believe operations are producing dust. CDOT officials say they will stop operations in the area to investigate such reports. The service is available in English and Spanish.

The Colorado Department of Transportation’s $1.2 billion highway expansion will overhaul 10 miles of Interstate 70 between Brighton Boulevard and Chambers Road. Workers will remove a 54-year-old viaduct, add a new express lane in each direction and lower part of the roadway underground.

Santos said she worries about the impact of dust and diesel exhaust from the I-70 construction traffic on her two asthma-stricken daughters’ health.

That’s because, even before work began on I-70, her neighborhood has been no stranger to environmental health concerns.

According to a 2017 report from ATTOM Data Solutions, Elyria-Swansea, Globeville and a section of the River North neighborhood — all part of the 80216 ZIP code that makes up much of north Denver — are in the highest “environmental hazard risk” of the more than 8,600 ZIP codes nationwide.

While the asthma rates in Elyria-Swansea and Globeville are not the highest in Denver, they are greater than the state average — and have increased in recent years.

In Elyria-Swansea, the asthma rate has jumped 41 percent since 2006-10 to 1,113.12 per 100,000 people in the 2013-17 time span. Globeville’s asthma rate has increased by 25 percent to 1,238.47 per 100,000 people in that same period, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.

A health-impact assessment conducted by Denver in 2014 found that residents of Elyria-Swansea and Globeville experience higher incidences of chronic health conditions — including asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity — than other Denver neighborhoods.

“CDOT has nearly two dozen mitigation commitments in place to ensure that air quality remains safe for residents near the construction project,” said Stacia Sellers, spokeswoman for the Central 70 Project. “We know this is a top concern for the community, which makes it ours too. It’s important that we continue to work with Kiewit Meridiam Partners to make sure we are operating equipment and maintaining work zones in such a way that we are abiding by our commitments and minimizing any impacts as much as possible.”

“It is hard”

The home Santos rents along with her mother is only a few blocks from her sister, cousins and other members of her extended family. There also was another perk about the neighborhood that she liked — the house is only a few blocks from Swansea Elementary, where the girls would go to school.

“I liked the idea of being so close to them while they were in school,” Santos said.

But in time, the girls became too sick to attend Swansea Elementary. They had to start attending a special school at Denver’s National Jewish Health for children with severe breathing issues.

“It is hard,” Santos said. “I have to get the girls up super early to get across town, but they need to be at a school where nurses can keep an eye on them.”

Maribel Rodriguez-Santos, 10, does her daily breathing treatment at her school’s clinic at National Jewish Hospital.Annabel Rodriguez-Santos, 8, does a nasal irrigation treatment at the sink in the school’s clinic.Nancy Santos helps put together a nebulizer for her 8-year-old daughter Annabel Rodriguez-Santos.TOP LEFT: Nancy Santos buys cleaning supplies. TOP RIGHT: Nancy Santos cleans her daughter’s nebulizer breathing tubes after a treatment. BOTTOM LEFT: An asthma inhaler is next to an open Bible at Nancy Santos’ home. BOTTOM RIGHT: Annabel Rodriguez-Santos, 8, does her nebulizer breathing treatment.

The smell of bleach hung in the air as Annabel lay in bed, resting after a long night of having multiple asthma attacks. Large white tiles, which flow throughout the small home, shined like mirrors after being mopped.

“I try to keep the house super clean,” Santos said. “When the girls get sick, it just makes their asthma worse. It’s one of the only things I know how to do to help them.”

She cleans the house as many as three times per day.

Asthma is a chronic lung disease that, through the swelling of a person’s airways, obstructs the flow of air into and out of the lungs, said Dr. Vamsi Guntur, associate professor of medicine at National Jewish Health.

“Asthma can develop at any time in life,” Guntur said. “We do not know exactly what causes asthma, but a variety of factors including genetics, abnormalities in the growth and development of the lungs and immune system, (and) various infections and exposures in the environment, can increase the risk of developing asthma.”

Annabel Rodriguez-Santos, 8, looks out the window at her home in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood, only a few blocks from construction on the Central 70 project. Annabel’s mother had her stay home from school that day because it was field day and she was scared it would trigger her asthma. “If Annabel gets sick we have no until Monday because I am having trouble with Medicare,” said Annabel’s mother Nancy Santos.TOP LEFT: Marcus Angel, 7, watches while crews work on the relocation of the playground at his neighborhood school, Swansea Elementary, as work on the Interstate 70 expansion project begins. TOP RIGHT: Maria Bracamontes, an asthma educator with Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Step Up Asthma Program, left, meets with Angela Orenday, 6, and her mother, Guadalupe Fabian, at Swansea Elementary School. Angela, a first-grader, was diagnosed with asthma at the age of four. Bracamontes helps Angela with learning the right way to use her medication and how to spot triggers that may cause her asthma to act up. BOTTOM LEFT: Traffic makes its way along an elevated section of Interstate 70 through Denver. BOTTOM RIGHT: Hector Gallegos with Energy Resource Center installs dust proof storm windows at a home about a block away from Interstate 70, before work begins on the Central 70 expansion project. CDOT funded for a program that gave some homeowners near the project new storm windows to help keep out dust and noise during the four-year construction project.A man at a salvage yard in Commerce City works on a wrecked car as emissions from nearby industry fill the sky, just north of Denver.

“They sure didn’t care”

A few blocks away in the same neighborhood, Yadira Sanchez sat in her living room typing away on her phone to make a doctor’s appointment for her younger son, Leonardo. She and all three of her kids have asthma. It’s difficult keeping up with the appointments.

“It makes it hard to keep a job,” Sanchez said. “I am always going to some kind of appointment — either at the doctor’s or at school.”

Sanchez’s family owns Panaderia Sanchez, a restaurant in the same neighborhood where they live. Her father started making traditional Mexican bread to sell after getting hurt and losing his job at a slaughterhouse. Her father was not a legal citizen at the time, so after his injury, he was immediately laid off, Sanchez said. She was 6 years old when her mother died, and she and her siblings helped make money by delivering their father’s bread door to door in north Denver. After several years, her father was able to grow the business into the family restaurant it is today. Sanchez’s brother now runs the business.

Her oldest son, Ruben, who is 18 and in his first year of college at Metropolitan State University of Denver, waits tables and does other odd jobs at the restaurant. On the weekends, Sanchez sells Mexican goods such as CDs, blankets and hats outside the restaurant.

Most days, a long shadow from the elevated portion of I-70 is cast up against the restaurant. Sanchez was visibly upset as she leaned against a dark, shaded side of the outside wall.

“I am pissed — just pissed. They don’t give a crap about this neighborhood,” she said, referring to the Colorado Department of Transportation and the city of Denver, as construction work on the Central 70 Project enveloped her neighborhood.

Orange- and white-striped signs marking closed roads and detours make it hard for customers to navigate into the restaurant’s parking lot. On that Sunday, usually one of their busier days, she had only one customer and ended up heading home early.

Sanchez is like many of her neighbors: Hispanic, raised in north Denver, and not far removed from her Mexican roots.

“It feels comfortable to live in a Latino neighborhood where a lot of people share the same history,” she said. “People here don’t understand the power of their voice. Lots of people rent and they are scared to say anything to their landlords.”

For example, she said mold in the homes around her neighborhood can be a huge issue for people with breathing problems.

“They are scared if they speak up, (landlords) will raise their rent,” Sanchez said.

“Not a whole lot is being done about keeping the air quality safe around here,” she added. “They sure didn’t care as they broke up concrete around the restaurant,” referring to ongoing work on the Central 70 Project, now ever-present throughout the neighborhood.

TOP LEFT: Ruben Sifuentez-Sanchez, 18, stocks the cooler at his family’s restaurant Panaderia Sanchez in Denver. TOP RIGHT: Ruben Sifuentez-Sanchez, 18, and his little brother Leonardo Sanchez, 11, share a room at their family’s home. BOTTOM LEFT: Ruben Sifuentez-Sanchez, 18, helps his little brother Leonardo Sanchez, 11, get his medications before going to bed. BOTTOM RIGHT: Leonardo Sanchez, 11, plays inside at his family’s home in Denver’s Elyria Swansea Neighborhood.“It feels like a snake wrapped around your chest,” said Olivia Sanchez, 13, referring to the feeling she gets when she is having an asthma attack.Yadira Sanchez takes a moment as her daughter, Olivia Sanchez, 13, does a nebulizer breathing treatment for her asthma at the family’s home.Leonardo Sanchez, 10, does a methaholine challenge test at National Jewish Hospital in Denver.

“You’re pulverizing concrete”

Despite the need for improvements along this section of I-70 and CDOT’s efforts to help lessen the environmental impact, the pollution factor remains a concern for people in the neighborhood.

According to Anthony Gerber, associate professor of medicine at National Jewish Health and commissioner on the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, there can be many issues with construction and dust for people living in the area.

“At the end of the day, you’re driving more trucks. You’re pulverizing concrete. There is a whole variety of activities associated with construction that clearly reduce air quality,” Gerber said.

He noted that his personal opinions do not represent an official position by the commission. He added that it is well established that traffic and different forms of industrial pollution, not specific to the Elyria-Swansea and Globeville neighborhoods, add to poor air quality.

Interactive graphics

“People who live near sources of pollution are going to get a higher exposure. … Air pollution can cause and promote the development of asthma, so we know that lifetime exposure, or lots of exposure when you are young, can make you more likely to get asthma,” Gerber said. “Air pollution can also make people have less-developed lungs. So, if you look at people who grew up near highways, they on average, as a percentage, will have less lung function as adults.”

During a noise variance meeting to get community feedback on the Central 70 Project in September, hundreds of people filled a room to voice concerns against the highway expansion. Sanchez’s son Ruben was among them. The teenager spoke about growing up near the construction and his concerns for his mother and two younger siblings who have asthma. He wondered how four years of breathing construction dust from the expansion will affect his family.

The variance meeting, held by the Denver Board of Public Health and Environment, was filled with all types of people. Some wore sweatpants, while others showed up in suits. There were young people with tattoos, and there was a 96-year-old woman with a walker.

The walker belonged to Bettie Cram, who has lived in Elyria-Swansea for 75 years. She even has a street named after her, near the National Western Stock Show Complex, where she worked and volunteered for many years.

Cram joined Ruben in voicing her concerns about the project. At her age, her concerns were not for herself, but for the children who live in the neighborhood. Cram has been active in trying to fight the project from the beginning. As a community activist, she helped put together the “Ditch the Ditch” organization and other neighborhood groups advocating against the project.

Back in her small brick home near the stock show complex, Cram sat in her favorite recliner making phone calls, trying to get others in her community involved in the fight against the Central 70 Project. While doing that, she received a call from her daughter who lives on the East Coast. Cram began catching up her daughter on news about the project.

“It sounds like a lost cause, Mom,” Cram’s daughter told her, referring to her opposition to the construction project.

Cram was still toying with the idea that her daughter may be right.

TOP LEFT: A noise variance hearing for the Central 70 expansion project was conducted at the Denver Board of Public Health and Environment. The meeting lasted late into the night and the board ended up passing the variance request put forth by Kiewit-Meridiam Partners, the lead contractor for the project. TOP RIGHT: Bettie Cram, 96, has lived in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood for 75 years. She is worried about what the ongoing I-70 construction will do to the health of children in the neighborhood. BOTTOM LEFT: Bettie Cram reaches for a pamphlet about the Central 70 project, which she keeps near her phone. BOTTOM RIGHT: Bettie cram comes back inside after sitting on the porch at her where she has lived for the last 75 years in Elyria-Swansea.

Words and pictures by RJ Sangosti

Special thanks for photo editing and production by Patrick Traylor; image toning by Katie Rausch; story editing by Matt Sebastian and Lee Ann Colacioppo; web development by Chris Brubaker; interactive graphics by Kevin Hamm

RJ Sangosti is a photographer for The Denver Post. He was named 2013 Photojournalist of the Year in the National Press Photographers Association’s award for large market newspapers. His portfolio included photos of the Aurora theater shooting, a story awarded The Denver Post the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news.

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